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Britain joins nuclear debate

Ruth Maclean

October 31 2012, 12:01am, The Times

A controversial nuclear conference is being attended by Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory for the first time.

The government agency has sent Tim Tinsley, a technology expert, to the International Thorium Energy Organisation conference in China — a four-day meeting about a radioactive material whose advocates say could provide a clean, safe and plentiful source of nuclear power.

Thorium and molten salt reactors — which have a fluid core rather than solid fuel rods — were the subject of British and American research in the 1960s and 1970s. They were regarded as sustainable and less toxic than other nuclear technology, with the added advantage that it was impossible to use their spent fuel to build nuclear bombs. However, the research ground to a halt and was not revived…